Tuesday, May 13, 2014

CC: Steap and Grind

I am greatly refreshed in watching the Fishtown area of Frankford Avenue grow and improve. Where few great establishments have existed in the past, many now flourish. Where there wasn't a decent cup of coffee for blocks, there is now a fount.

One such spring of both coffee and tea is Steap and Grind, a cafe location of Premium Steap that has taken its great love of tea and has married it with coffee. The cafe brews Gimme Coffee (one of the only in the area) as well as a retail offering of beans from Harvest Coffee Roastery over in NJ. The building is a gorgeous corner structure with seating outside in the warmth, overlooking the adjacent park. Inside, the cafe is calm, clean and open, with an array of wood furniture and plenty of natural light spilling in from both sides of the cafe.

For my coffee on my most recent visit, I ordered an espresso of Gimme's Leftist and a drip (from a Bunn dispenser) of the Piccolo Mundo. The espresso, pulled to a medium volume with blonde crema, smacked of chocolate, raspberry, orange juice, coriander and a little croissant, making for a mucho tasty infusion despite a minor sourness from underextraction. The drip sang of cherries, butterscotch, vanilla cake, a little wheat grass and a touch of salt, all within a medium body; a great coffee to be paired with sweets. While I didn't have any tea this time around, I have had several blends prior, all delicious amidst their vast and always-morphing selection.

Given the relatively convenient location of this cafe in Fishtown, I am happy to have Steap and Grind as a place to stop for either a good cup of coffee or a great cup of tea. Make a stop by the next time you travel down the glittering streets of Frankford Avenue.